Obamacare and rate increases - report your results here

[fazer]

Sorry to rant but.
Rates are up from 829 this year for 2 people up to 1195 next year.  But also out of pocket max has doubled from 4500 to 12,600 (Family).  30% copay for major and outpatient(same as before).  Where is this going.  Its a major hit after trying to deal with only temp work available for last 3 years.  I have a couple more years to go before I retire.  I cant imagine this system continuing.  Obama/Congress gets an F in helping me out, an A in higher insurance rates and an FFFF in managing rising cost of medical ( if you even can).  In 3 years I've experienced 15 to 20% rise every year.  I'm in that messy place of over 60 but not on Medicaid yet.  My brother inlaw is 66 and his cost went to $98/mon managed Medicade from Kaiser.    In Kaiser has been the lowest cost for plans for me as well compared to all the other providers.  The others  have nothing for the same per/month or poor coverage higher deductible.  It feels very rigged to me (not what was promised, is it ever).  I live in Colo., so they have an exchange but so what.  I'm not sure what the enrollment is in Colo compared to national.  I under stand why employers want me as a temp/part time editor to avoid medical coverage. 

So advise is what. Suck it up, Walk it off,  Its mandatory now mister.  Stop before you give yourself a Stroke.  This is not Affordable Care. 

 

[emrr]

Newspaper here says today BCBS is reactivating my plan, but with a 16-23% increase.  Letters out by 12/1; 12/15 is drop-dead to decide path.  Oh fun.  This feels like another 40 hours lost trying to sort the best path.  Previously if I did nothing and let them assign me, it was going up 300%.  Really. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

This situation is in flux, for now try to obey the law. There are likely to be changes, but I can't predict what, when, or how. 

The recent flip-flop, where our President advised the insurance companies to now ignore ACA and reinstate or allow the former (cheaper) plans that they cancelled because of the legislation, ignores the ugly reality that somebody has to pay for all this largess. Without the shift of most paying consumers to more expensive plans the insurance companies will not have the revenue to carry the rest.

The ACA legislation already has a make good clause in it where insurance companies who lose money under ACA will get compensation from tax payers. There was recent discussion about expanding this budget based on the current trajectory. if insurance companies literally did allow everybody to keep their cheaper plans, the system implodes without even more taxpayer money added to the kitty. 
========

Kathleen Sibelius was at a staged photo op in Miami with a bunch of ACA navigators showing how easy it was to sign up, and the website crashed with her standing in front of a room full of reporters. Oops. I give her an A for optimism, and extra credit for not faking the website demonstration, but not a very high grade for management effectiveness, whether managing the visuals or the reality.

I still think the website is mostly a side show. The real story is the math behind how this massive entitlement will be paid for. Hard to ignore that reality for very long. Most consumers will notice when their costs go up.

JR

 

[lassoharp]

The ACA legislation already has a make good clause in it where insurance companies who lose money under ACA will get compensation from tax payers

Last torpedo in a sinking ship for me.  Insurance companies are certainly the least in need of compensation.  Make them suck it up, and keep sucking it up I say. 

 

[riggler]

My mom has not been doing well lately, and this whole ACA thing has driven her crazy. My brother and I are trying to help her out. Her retirement plan price is going up, and looking at the ACA plans on the "Marketplace" is more expensive too, unless she gets a lower-standard plan than what she has.

The whole thing, politics aside, is really dreadful. So yeah, Rob Peter to pay Paul... whatever...

 

[JohnRoberts]

Not to wake this sleeping dog but a couple observations in passing.

#1 the number of exclusions and arbitrary changes made by the WH in contradiction to the ACA as written, is troubling and needs to be addressed at some point. It was difficult (for me) to see how this expansion would be paid for as originally written. Now it increasingly looks like a black hole for revenue (green hole?). Stacking the local DC bench with a couple new friendly judges (thank you nuclear option) may pay off sooner rather than later if this uneven execution gets challenged through the court system.

#2 I have seen arm waving from both sides in the media about the high deductibles in many of the lower tier insurance policies.  Looking at this with an economist's eye shade on, the higher deductible more closely resembles true insurance, that should only cover extraordinary expenses not, routine healthcare maintenance expenses that should IMO be paid for and managed out of pocket. In practice this direct involvement with consumers buying and paying for healthcare should impose cost discovery and price decision making on the end users and ultimately foster an environment where competition "could" rise up.

Unfortunately for every one glimmer of free market force I see, there are a handful of bureaucratic price controls and the like removing choice. I suspect this high deductible will be viewed though the prism of just being a cost increase. which it actually is... Somebody has to pay for all this new expanded entitlement spending.  But it actually moves this a little toward a true insurance model. 

The big lie about government largess is that somebody always has to pay. The larger the give away, the more average taxpayers have to pony up. There seem to be less of these taxpayers every day, so the remaining crowd carries a larger burden. This income fairness is what the left want's the 2014 election to be about. I find it hard to imagine the ACA to be all settled by then but even I can't predict the future.

JR

PS: Next near term political fight looks like the debt ceiling (again). As Obama correctly stated this is arguing about paying off bills for past purchases already approved by congress. Funny Obama argued the opposite side as a young senator, but that is the nature of political partisans in and out of power.

 

[emrr]

Blue Cross subsidy estimator says:
If you are a married couple, you must file income taxes jointly for the 2014 tax year to be eligible for subsidies from the federal government.

HUGE marriage penalty. 

 

[fazer]

EMRR thats right.  In order to qualify for the subsidy you have to file taxes jointly and also the plan has to be a joint plan not individual.  What I've heard is that you will get a subsidy (end of the year) if you have low income. I'm paying the full amount per month then adjust for a subsidy on the 2014 tax return.  Just have to see what kind of income I make before taking a subsidy that I might have to payback if I exceed the threshold.   

My main problem now is your not part of a group per say if you self employed.  They have done nothing to fix the bad rates for not being a true group policy.  If this is the way of healthcare it needs to be a single payer system with a big open exchange market as others have suggested.

 

[Phrazemaster]

...I doubt my self insurance is ACA compliant so I expect to pay a $95 fine. ...

JR I read recently it's $95 or 1% of your income for the penalty...haven't verified it but that's pretty sick.

I'm in your camp; I pay "health insurance" by buying and consuming expensive organic food and have not formally seen a dr in many years (not necessarily a good thing but, if it ain't broke!).

I think this whole new system is absolutely reprehensible and one bald faced lie after another isn't changing my feelings about it. To me, this represents the first time we are forced to buy something just for being alive. IE in the past we've had to buy car insurance to drive; this is insurance simply because we are alive and Americans. It sickens me to the core we are forced into this system which I believe is not only the opposite of its moniker but also destructive of medical care and affordability. For the first time I really don't even want to be here and feel angry to be an American pawn.

Merry Christmas.

EDIT: apologies if I've hijacked the thread; permission to remove it if it's too OT.

 

[JohnRoberts]

...I doubt my self insurance is ACA compliant so I expect to pay a $95 fine. ...

JR I read recently it's $95 or 1% of your income for the penalty...haven't verified it but that's pretty sick.

Since I'm getting along in years, I signed up to start receiving Social Security, and medicare part A and B, so if my understanding of the ACA is correct, I now have health insurance so won't have to pay a fine. The cost of medicare is automatically deducted from the Social Security so pretty painless...  Now I'm one of those entitlement pukes, but i did pay into Social Security for decades. 

I'm in your camp; I pay "health insurance" by buying and consuming expensive organic food and have not formally seen a dr in many years (not necessarily a good thing but, if it ain't broke!).

Yup... I get angry about paying more because of other people's lifestyle caused medical problems (smoking, obesity, nutrition, lack of exercise, etc). While I already have two dead siblings who smoked. The calculus of personal choices seems painfully obvious to me.

I think this whole new system is absolutely reprehensible and one bald faced lie after another isn't changing my feelings about it. To me, this represents the first time we are forced to buy something just for being alive. IE in the past we've had to buy car insurance to drive; this is insurance simply because we are alive and Americans. It sickens me to the core we are forced into this system which I believe is not only the opposite of its moniker but also destructive of medical care and affordability. For the first time I really don't even want to be here and feel angry to be an American pawn.

Merry Christmas.

EDIT: apologies if I've hijacked the thread; permission to remove it if it's too OT.

I prefer to give (most of) them the benefit of the doubt as having good intentions. Reforming healthcare to lower cost and expand availability to poor people is hard to argue with. Unfortunately as I have been arguing for some time, the "how" matters. The plan written and passed by only one political party is strong on promises but weak on how to effectively accomplish this.

What I am waiting for now is how do we fix this, because I do not expect this new entitlement to ever go away, so making the healthcare system work smoothly under the new normal without throwing cubic money at it (that we don't have) won't be easy, so within the next couple years we will either move this toward a more market based solution, or even more complete government takeover. The latter will require even higher tax burden and drag on the economy.

If course the future hasn't happened yet, so maybe I'm wrong and this will magically work out wonderfully after a few start-up glitches. Or it goes into a death spiral, when young healthy individuals do not sign up in large enough numbers to carry the added cost burden of the increase in sick uninsured who do, so next year's insurance rates go up even higher, etc. I find it worrying that they postponed next year's sign up date to 2 weeks after the mid term elections, instead of two weeks before as scheduled. It seems even they do not expect a good reception to 2015 rates. 

I worry because I have noticed industry changes in anticipation of this law over the last several years. That genie can't be put back in the bottle, but I remain optimistic that there can be a better way developed, after we let this run it's course.       

or not...

JR

 

[Phrazemaster]

Good points JR, as usual.

For me this literally takes food right out of my mouth (as I suspect it does for many). I've had a pretty tight budget and adding an additional $300/month for something I don't use, along with the expected rent increases (this is the worst renter's economy ever, and rents have never been higher!) puts me in a bad spot.

I could have bought a place in 2000 when I had a tidy sum saved, but instead chose to go off to a seminar that cost bank. It was a great experience that still to this day pays me back, but I have paid dearly for it in other ways.

Oh wait, this was about healthcare, sorry. Bas'tds.

Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yup, If you bought a house in 2000 you would have experienced the scary roller coaster ride up one side and then even scarier ride most of the way back down.

Housing used to be the no-brainer investment that you could never lose with (given a fair amount of time), but thanks to government promotion and some bizarre financial engineering, housing turned into a honey pot gotcha when many people participated in a something-for-nothing bubble mentality and got burned. IMO we still haven't returned to complete normalcy, and won't until the government removes their thumb from the scale. 

I expect rentals to remain expensive since the old path to home ownership now looks too scary for many young buyers. Hedge funds are buying up huge blocks of distressed houses, to rent out now and then surely flip in several years when the rental market softens and it makes sense to sell out.

One of the recent administration appointments (thanks to the new no-fllibuster rule change) was  NC dem Rep Mel Watts (with only 57 votes to stop debate). He is expected to pursue controversial strategies like reducing principal for struggling homeowners, that acting director DeMarko, who he replaces, declined and was criticized for not doing by Obama. Reducing principal on existing mortgages is just wrong, effectively government talking money by force from the owner of the mortgage debt and transferring it arbitrarily to the homeowner.  This will disrupt the future new mortgage market if investors can not be certain that in the future their capital investments will not be taken by government force too.

The government recently turned down an offer from some investors to take Fannie and Freddie private (currently in government conservatorship). I am not debating whether that was a good deal or not, but I have seen zero movement from government to wind down it's involvement in Fannie and freddie. And the new director of the government oversight agency looks like they may be more aggressive about using them to promote administration policy, not return the mortgage business to the private sector.       

Again I can't predict the future, but the apparent "see no evil" attitude about F & F ignores the part they played in the economic upheaval we are still recovering from. While maybe I should be thankful that Dodd-Frank didn't deal with F & F.  I can just imagine their idea of a fix. ;D

JR

 

[Phrazemaster]

Well now I'm getting very OT but fractional reserve lending is a huge part of the problem IMO - the banks get to "create" money that we then have to pay back with real money; it's a can't-lose proposition for them and very much a risk proposition for the buyers if a mortgage is had. So I am very much FOR reducing principle when said lent money actually is lighter than air; it doesn't even exist. I know you have stated that this stimulates the economy when banks can lend out this non-existent fluff, but I very much disagree. Basing an economic system on non-existent bartering units and then charging interest on that worse-than-play-money seems to be a recipe for certain disaster. Which is, arguably, what we see.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yes, OT but always interesting.  IMO fractional reserve banking is too valuable for the greater good to ignore. That said, I concede it does come with volatility and requires regulation (yes I said it, regulation serves a useful purpose in banking).

If you want something to chew on how about the old gold standard and currency (inflation) policy? I see that being a greater potential for economic injury should we ever screw up and lose reserve status. It seems logical that we need a hard peg between all the world's currencies, but almost nobody wants that because they believe they can get a better deal at some future time.

Disregard the upcoming debt threshold/borrowing authority scrum. This a manufactured conflict for political posturing and has no real consequence, unless the politicians are even dumber than they appear and actually default on our obligations. I predict they won't. 

But these are pretty abstract issues, we have more concrete issues to be concerned about like the ACA, but now is the time for me to mostly wait and see how it plays out. I complained enough about it over the last few years. Lets see if I was correct, or just hate poor people.  :-X

Merry christmas all

JR

 

[sodderboy]

The whole Moochelle Obama "go home and discuss the benefits of the plan with your family around the Christmas table" is right out of the moldy, rotten Totalitarianism for Dummies handbook.

This is what you want This is what you get
This is what you want This is what you get
This is what you want This is what you get
This is what you want This is what you get

Someone just posted "let the insurance companies suck it up".  They don't, and you don't get it.  They pass it on to you.  Dudd-Wank regulations are STILL being written and the "increased fees on the evil greedy banks" will end up that YOU pay higher fees and penalties. 

It's gonna take much more of this for people to realize that This is what you want This is what you get

Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

Someone just posted "let the insurance companies suck it up".  They don't, and you don't get it.  They pass it on to you.  Dudd-Wank regulations are STILL being written and the "increased fees on the evil greedy banks" will end up that YOU pay higher fees and penalties. 

It's gonna take much more of this for people to realize that This is what you want This is what you get

Mike

The insurance companies are in on the deal and can only suck it up so much before there is not enough money to stay in business and keep the ACA plates spinning. The original legislation already has a bail out kitty to make the insurance companies whole if not enough young healthy citizens, sign up to carry the new, older , sicker free riders. There has already been discussion about expanding the size of this insurance bail out kitty, and that was before the chief executive modified the scope of the law with even more exclusions. This first year will not be a money maker for big insurance, and the 2015 rates should reflect that. We'll see if they keep those 2015 rates secret until after the 2014 mid term elections in Nov. 

No amount of PR and spin sugar will make this medicine go down smoothly.

Of course I would love to be wrong.

JR

PS: I thought DF was on track to hit their end of the year deadline, while the Volker rule is already causing some push back and unintended consequences preventing mid-sized banks from routine hedging that they were doing. 

 

[sodderboy]

Medical insurance is math. "Healthcare insurance" has nothing to do with math.  Government mandated healthcare insurance is pure beureaucratic messup of said subject, 600 mil website down the drain aside

I've been taking the hits early because my "insurer", US Healthcare, helped write the shite.

The secret is that Dear Leader is the ultimate hypocrite outsourcer. He does nothing with his imprint on it

This is what you want THIS is what you GET

Don't get me wrong I have faith in us US Americsns for a time despite our US federal government
Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

Medical insurance is math. "Healthcare insurance" has nothing to do with math.  Government mandated healthcare insurance is pure beureaucratic messup of said subject, 600 mil website down the drain aside

I've been taking the hits early because my "insurer", US Healthcare, helped write the sh*te.

The secret is that Dear Leader is the ultimate hypocrite outsourcer. He does nothing with his imprint on it

This is what you want THIS is what you GET

Don't get me wrong I have faith in us US Americsns for a time despite our US federal government
Mike

I try not to get down into the mud of political policy, but this is shaping up to look like a massive wealth transfer between those earning less and and those earning more.  So the wealthy being asked to pay more are not the "evil" top 1% but pretty much everybody earning more than 3x the poverty level (roughly 33k). 

This is the classic lie about tax increases, the only people capable of paying for government largess are the vast working middle, not the fringe wealthy, while they keep playing that one note song (income inequality) to keep eyes off the man behind the curtain. 

I picked a very good year to turn 65 YO...  8) (thanks mom and dad for the timing).

JR

 

[sodderboy]

Heh-heh!

Aaaaaflac! Insurance ad link inserted under your post on my pheevee. That goose's days are numbered as it is a Cadillac of birds. Numbered to, what, about 1,769 days (as of now) when the union and other Caddie plans' exemptions end?
Mike

 

[lassoharp]

Someone just posted "let the insurance companies suck it up".  They don't, and you don't get it.  They pass it on to you.  Dudd-Wank regulations are STILL being written and the "increased fees on the evil greedy banks" will end up that YOU pay higher fees and penalties

I think that was me that said it.  Agreed - Insurance Companies and the surrounding political structure are probably 10 steps ahead of just about anything that might be proposed that's not in their favor.  And with enough power to pass the buck along and off their backs.  So, what does the public do?  Not try and upset the bear for fear of getting the hand stuck deeper in their pockets?  I can say I'm guilty of that to some degree.  I dread having to file an insurance claim for fear of having my premiums raised.  I have a crack on my front windshield.  Someone said "Just file it on your insurance and they'll pay for it"  Sure, and then I'll end up paying for it in the long run.  I'm ok with that to the degree that I believe that insurance should be there to cover dire emergencies.  But I will get no break there either if one should come up.  They will pay and my rates will go up.

I do have one person to report of in the NC who was able to get insurance for $16 per month - a very basic plan.  She had no insurance before.  What I'm seeing is a trend - those in the middle bracket who could afford private insurance before are getting slammed with 3X or higher rate increases while those who could not even think of getting a private insurance plan can now do so.  Big picture on that is perfect political divide.  Same old moth eaten rhetoric we've all heard for years - Now you have a fresh group of people hating and resenting the "dead beats and freeloaders" who are somehow at the root of all the attempts at changing healthcare.  I see it and hear it everyday.  Very few in this state who are not the flag waving liberals will give a second thought to the fact that the current governor could have opted in to the medicaid expansion and served the public better as far as lower insurance rates.  But, yes, this sounds potentially good for the short run but you have armies of powerful institutions working full force to make sure that money doesn't come out of their pockets and eventually like leaks in a faulty dam, it gets taken back.  I have no idea what a solution to the current situation might be.  Maybe at some point enough people will get fed up and just quit paying.  Just drop their insurance and quit paying.  I threw my hands in the air years ago after a trip to the ER for a suspected appendicitis which was only a stomach virus.  Outrageous bills and trash cans full of them.  Fortunately I have no credit rating and no worries about it being eroded.  And, I have no dependents.  If ethics and morality play into the decision.  Let's say you sent me a small piece of gear to recap, maybe 10 caps to replace.  I send you a bill for 15 thousand dollars.  You laugh.  I can't be serious can I.  I say, yes, I am.  You gonna pay me?  If you don't should I really be uspet?  I have no idea how those proportions parallel with current typical US Health care costs.  I'm just betting they are not too far off.  Something sure is.

More tales of woe:

http://www.viralnova.com/hospital-bill/